


Over the Moon

by Carbocat



Series: Up to Speed [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Dimension Travel, Hurt/Comfort, No Jesse in this one, Sorry guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:51:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbocat/pseuds/Carbocat
Summary: With a speed and strength Barry had not anticipated, the stillness was shattered with a close fist slammed into his jaw. And with it, the hand curled in his shirt was gone, curled instead into raised fists so tight that broken fingernails cut the skin.An accented voice asked, cockiness just barely overshadowing the exhaustion and fear, “You didn’t see that coming?”





	Over the Moon

Desperate.

The word appeared in Barry’s mind so sudden and tangible that it felt as if it took up physical space in the room, as sudden and tangible as the wisps of white curls and jaded blue crystal eyes. As sudden as the torn blue and gray uniform, as the man in the middle of the cortex.

There was nothing and then there was, the word and the man.

Both demanding the attention of all the occupants of the cortex, demanding in the tense and still silence. Demanding acknowledgement without a spoken word, demanding awareness, to be known. Desperation.

It tinted the air, dirtied it with the stench of electricity. Clouded everything in a thick smog of sweat and exhaust, in ozone and blood, desperation. Fear.

It echoed in hesitant steps taken forward, in the waved off whispered hiss of his name and hands held out and unthreatening. In the questions that were left unanswered and unacknowledged – _Is he okay? Where did he come from? Is that blood? Barry, your suit._

And then, in the violence.

Like an animal in a care will snap at a helping hand, desperate.

Fingers – bloody and bleeding fingers – intertwined in the collar of his plaid button down, pulling forward. Barry allowed it, he wasn’t in uniform. He wasn’t The Flash in this instance, he was _Barry_.

He thought that Barry would be enough, “Hey, hey, you’re safe. Are you…”

He wasn’t.

When glassy blue eyes looked straight into his eyes and saw nothing, Barry knew. The farthest thing from okay was the man in front of him so Barry let his voice falter and trail off back into silence. The question was left unfinished and hanging. The hand in his shirt went slack, it was shaking.

There was bruising where the fabric had worn into holes, dirty, burnt and frayed the way civilian clothes sometimes got after one too many runs. His collarbone was broken and healing incorrectly, healing too fast.

It wasn’t shaking, Barry realized belatedly. The hand was vibrating.

“You’re a speed-“

With a speed and strength Barry had not anticipated, the stillness was shattered with a close fist slammed into his jaw. And with it, the hand curled in his shirt was gone, curled instead into raised fists so tight that broken fingernails cut the skin.

An accented voice asked, cockiness just barely overshadowing the exhaustion and fear, “You didn’t see that coming?”

“That’s how it’s going to be?” Barry asked, rubbing his jaw. Besides the jaunty smirk, this apparent speedster was swaying so much that a strong wind was all that was needed to topple him over. His eyes still unfocused and scared, desperate and exhausted, and he was hiding it all behind a thin façade.

He cocked his head to the side as if he was considering his option and then nodded shortly, “It appears so.”

So, it was.

Barry zigged while the other speedster zagged.

It became very clear to Barry that he was fast and had more experience than this speedster, advantaged by familiarity of the cortex, a level head, and healthy body. But the speedster was unpredictable the way caged animals often were, lacking concern for who he knocked down or what damaged was caused to the machinery.

He was also more skilled with fighting up close than Barry was and he fought dirty with teeth and fingernails. Barry dodged when a closed fist was sent towards his head, blocked the elbow swung back at his throat, pushed back when he was shoved but he was restraining. He was holding back.

Barry was on the defensive because the speedster’s movements were desperate and sloppy with exhaustion and pain. Every punch thrown was accompanied with a scream, a growl, pain-laced emotion and he just wouldn’t stop fighting until Cisco put a stop to it all.

There was a pause. Barry accidently jousted the injured collarbone and the other speedster stumbled backwards with a hiss, swaying slight in one spot for just a second too long, and then bam.

The speedster was sent into the glass dividing the cortex from the medbay, it splintered and cracked against his back. He was left winded, a nasty wheezing sound pulling from him with every ragged breath. He pulled himself from the glass only to fall back into it.

He stopped, finally, shaking hands resting on shaking knees.

“Who are you?”

It was a moment before anything other than a wheeze would pass through his lips and even then, it was a breathless sneer that sounded impossibly arrogate, “ _What_ are you?

His eyes were focused and sharp when he looked passed Barry to Cisco, eyebrow raised. Cisco sneered back, “The guy that just kicked your Blue Lightning ass, that’s who.”

“Blue?”

“I come up with the names around here, Blue Lightning,” Cisco noted, crossing his arms. “Don’t like it than don’t break in. How did you-“

“No, no, not blue,” He shook his head, the dizziness showing in his face for the briefest second before disappearing into a look of distaste. He straightened his spine regardless of the evident pain, “I am-“

He stumbled forward when his head swam, hand spread out for something to balance on before being pulled back with a sharp gasp and pressed against his side. It came back red and bloody.

The speedster blinked at his hand and swallowed hard, accent thick, “I – I’m, ‘m bleeding.”

Without another word spoke, his eyes rolled into his skull. Barry surged forward, just barely managing to catch him before he hit the floor.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.”

 

 

Pietro was in pain.

No, scratch that.

Having your apartment building dropped on you and your parents disappearing forever in the wreckage, that was painful.

Having Hydra doctors stick you, prod you, cut you open and look inside. Having Hydra agents run you, kick you, crush your fingers beneath their boots and sneer to you that you were oh so lucky. That had been painful.

Having six bullets pierce your skin and burn through your body had been painful. Dying, that had been painful. This – this feeling?

This dull throbbing ache of rebroken bone, of stitches too fresh and too tight in tender skin. This slow pulsing behind his eyes and the tight vice-like squeeze of his spine, the too hard pillow beneath his head, the cold jitter through his teeth and bruises on his feet. The bone wary tiredness and slow itch of sleep-sticky eyes, the hollowness of his heart. This feeling, it was old and foreign. It was human.

He felt human.

He felt slow, excruciatingly sluggish, and _human_.

He sat up slowly, impeded by the grind of broken ribs, but much too fast for his brain to cope with because the entire world tilted onto its side.

He tumbled from the bed with vertigo, clumsily taking the blanket with his as he crashed painfully shoulder-first onto the cold slab of concrete. His right arm was immobilized against his chest and unable to catch himself. He could feel the break in the bone, feel every bruise and cut that littered his body.

He could feel the slightest sliver of his speed beneath the rush of blood in his veins but nothing more. It felt – the feeling was not dissimilar to how he felt upon waking up in the hospital, like his power had been maxed out trying to heal him.

He wasn’t hurt enough for that to be the case. It didn’t make sense to him.

All that would have, _should_ have, disappeared in the span of an hour, of minutes with his healing ability, was there and he _felt_ it all so sluggish and painful. Human, too human.

He blinked hard when he curled into a sitting position, letting the world come into focus.

His uniform was gone, stripped down to the sweatpants he wore beneath it and a navy sweatshirt with S.T.A.R. Labs written across it. So, a lab. _He_ was in a lab, he was in…

It was a cell.

A shiver shook him painfully, crawling to his feet and tracing every inch of the cell, six by six. Six even steps from the back to the front, six steps from the left to the right. And then he did it again, checking and rechecking, feeling every inch of cold metal walls that were nothing but solid indifference beneath his bandaged fingertips. Felt every corner of the plexiglass window that didn’t so much as smudge.

And then he let the anxiety swell inside of him and he panicked.

“No, no, no,” He repeated, starting under his breath and then louder with indignant, disbelieve, anger. Desperation. He pulled at his hair, scrubbed at his eyes, pressed against the bruised skin where his heart was threatening to escape. No, “Not again, not this. Not happening, no.”

“No, no, no, nononono.” It was a cacophony of denial and anger, desperation getting louder with every slam of his fist against the glass. There was no give, not even a shake, there was nothing but white bandages stained red from split knuckles. “Not this – not – no, no, no!”

“Hey, hey!”

Pietro stumbled back, hitting the back wall before he realized he was doing it. He blinked, took a shaky breath, and forced himself not to flinch at the harsh voice.

This wasn’t Hydra, he told himself. It wasn’t, it was – it was the guy with hair too long for Hydra regulations and hands that glowed like Wanda’s. It wasn’t Hydra, he wasn’t there.

An annoyed hand was waved at him and then scolding, “Stop doing that, you’re only going to hurt yourself. That cell could hold King Shark.”

“Eh?” Confusion colored Pietro’s voice, feeling that undercurrent of loss he felt when he didn’t understand an American idiom before pushing it to the back of his mind. His eyes narrowed and he snapped, “Who are you? Who are you and what – what the hell did you do to me?”

 “We stopped you from bleeding out so you’re welcome,” Cisco snorted and then pressed something on his tablet. A pressure lock released and then an insert in the wall opened, two energy bars dropped into the room. “You passed out from low blood sugar, not the blood loss.”

Pietro didn’t touch them, “How do I know those aren’t poisoned?”

“Paranoid much?”

“You are holding me prisoner,” He pointed out. “You haven’t told me who you are. What is S.T.A.R. Labs? A testing facility?”

“I’m Cisco and S.T.A.R. Labs is exactly what you’re thinking” – Pietro very much hoped not and Cisco seemed to realize that – “It’s a lab, we create the tech that stop people like you.”

“Avengers?” He sneered.

“Intruders,” Cisco replied offhandedly, making a note on his tablet.

“You hold people prisoner.”

“Yeah, well, you did _break_ in here,” He replied. “Made a good effort trying to break my toys and my friend. I’m pretty sure I asked you who you were first, Blue Lightning.”

“Quicksilver,” He corrected. “Not – not _that_.”

“Are you attached to that name?” Cisco asked. “Because-“

“I am,” He replied sharply. Hydra stripped him of a lot of things, his name included, they ruined it. Pietro Maximoff had too much dirt on his, Quicksilver was clean, he was very much attached to it. “I am not looking for change, no.”

“Well, ‘Quicksilver’, you’re probably wondering why you’re feeling a little less speedy.”

“Yes.”

“That chamber suppresses meta powers,” He told him. “We don’t have a great track record with speedsters from different Earths and you did try to kick our collective asses. So, sorry, not sorry.”

“I’m not a meta.”

“Yeah,” He hummed, looking back down at his tablet like something was bothering him. “I’m getting that. Where’s that accent from, by the way.”

“Sokovia.”

“I don’t think we have one of those on this Earth.”

“We don’t have one on mine either,” Pietro replied bitterly but refused to dwell or elaborate on that sensitive subject. “This is a different Earth then, yes? Which one?”

“You were trying to get to another Earth?” He asked, Pietro shrugged. “You can calm down, you know. The chamber monitors your vitals and yours are off the charts, like, alarmingly off the charts. We’re not going to hurt you, looks like someone already did.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Pietro snorted, attempting to cross his arms before settling on a glare when he remembered the sling on his right arm. “You couldn’t, I’m an Avenger.”

Cisco rose to that with a snort of his own, “I’m sorry, whose ‘Avenger’ ass was it that got slammed into a wall by this badass? Oh yeah, it was you.”

“I didn’t see that coming,” He conceded, a smirk playing on his lips as he mimicked a gesture that was closer to Wanda’s hand movements than Cisco’s. “Psionic powers, no? My sister does something like that.”

“I vibe,” Cisco answered easily, keeping the conversation light because his vitals were getting somewhere closer to normal. “It’s, uh, dimensional energy manipulation if you want to be technical. I can see between the dimensions, vibrational blasts, stuff like that. Did you say sister, is she on this Earth, too?”

Pietro’s expression dimmed, settling into an uneasy pout and a far-off look, there was a spike in his vitals again. “No, Wanda is – I need to get back to her, now. I should not be gone this…”

Pietro trialed off, face twisting into a glare. Cisco followed it to where Barry was walking up the ramp to the cell, uniform on but mask of. He ignored Pietro for the moment and asked Cisco, “Did you get a name?”

“Quicksilver.”

“Did you get a real name?”

“Not yet,” Cisco supplied, Pietro sent his glare his way but it was ignored. “Doesn’t look like he has a doppelganger. Has a sister, off-Earth.”

“And off-Earth is-“

“He vibes at a frequency that I’ve never seen, an Earth that we’ve never been too.”

Barry nodded, walking up to the glass and staring, freighting a friendliness that Pietro was not buying, “You give me your name and I’ll give you mine?”

“Or you could let me out of here and I can beat it out of you, eh?” Pietro sneered and then sneered again when Barry only looked amused, “I already know your name, Flash. It’s Wally. Jesse said-“

“Jesse Quick?” Cisco asked curiously and then turned to Barry. “He knows Jesse. Looks like Jesse’s been traveling.”

“ _Or_ he has,” Barry supplied and then glared at Pietro. “I’m _The_ Flash. Wally is _Kid_ Flash.”

“You give up two secret identities just like that, eh?’ He scoffed. “You are _worse_ than Stark. I do not care who you are, I need to speak to Jesse or to leave.”

“You’re really not in the position to be making demands.”

“You are not the police, you cannot hold me.”

“You’re looking pretty held to me.”

Pietro set his jaw, grinding his molars together, and watched Barry do the same thing. Stubborn then, he was starting to think it was a trait among speedsters. He was going to have to be smart about this.

He was going to have to play this like a spy.

He had scoffed at the very idea that ‘spy boot camp’ was a part of his Avenger training but at the moment, he’d never been more grateful for Natasha Romanoff kicking his ass for not taking it seriously.

They knew Jesse and she had told him that they were her friends so they had to be good guys. Natasha always said that the easiest thing to twist was the heartstrings of a good man.

So, he sighed and allowed the tiredness he felt seep into his bones.

“My name is Pietro Maximoff,” He stated, keeping eye contact with Barry. Natasha said that it was important to show them your eyes, put people at ease. “I am an Avenger. I am Sokovian, I live in New York City now.”

“My sister and I spent three years locked in cells,” He continued, letting the raw bitter pain from that time bubble to the surface. “We were tortured and experimented on by Hydra” – a blank look – “By _Nazis_. Do you have Nazis on this Earth?”

He got a slow now in return.

“Bad, yes.”

“Yes.”

“Do not be like them,” He told him, he meant it. “Please. I need to – my sister, she is not okay and I don’t – I just ran, yes? I need to speak with Jesse. This is not her Earth, no?”

“No, it’s not. She’s not here.”

Pietro slumped at that realization, muttered a curse under his breath in his native tongue and then jumped when the pressure lock on the cell was released and the door slid open. Cisco spoke first, taking a step forward, “Caitlyn should make sure you didn’t tear any of your stitches anyways and you need to eat.”

Pietro was barely listening to him, too eager to get on the other side of the glass before they changed their mind. He reveled in the feeling of his powers returning to their full glory before that feeling was clamped down with a pair of hi-tech bracelets, “What?”

“These dampen your powers,” Cisco said as way of explanation. “Not to be a total dick but like I said, you tried to kick our asses and we’ve been burnt more than once.”

Pietro rolled his eyes but followed them to the cortex and then into the medbay. He sat down on the bed with a sigh, it was almost impossible to believe that he’d once been this slow. It was exhausting, “I am okay, a little banged up. That is all.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” The woman, Caitlyn, said as she helped him out of his shirt without causing him too much pain.

She tsked at the torn stitches but said nothing else so he answered the question they were all loudly not asking, “I was shot. A lot.”

Cisco snorted, “No kidding, how are you alive?”

Pietro’s smile was humorless when he spoke, “I did not survive the battle, I died on the field. Woke up in the morgue, died again on the operating table but Dr. Cho is very good. I made a fully recovery, ‘walked it off,’ as you say.”

“That’s quite an ordeal,” Caitlyn said softly, checking his collarbone over again. “What is an Avenger? Sorry, I was listening in, I hope you don’t mind.”

“The Avengers are, uh, a group of remarkable people that fight the battles that no one else can,” He answered. “We are the last line of defense, yes. That is how it is advertised.”

“Were you recruited?”

“I helped nearly end the world,” He answered truthfully, laying back so she could tend to the broken stitches. “My sister and I, we aligned ourselves with the wrong, uh, thing. We were young and stupid, we helped save the world at the cost of our home country. We help now.”

Caitlyn nodded, her finger resting on a puckered scar of one of the wounds he got in Sokovia, “It is very had to admit when we make mistakes, it is very mature that you are working to fix yours.”

“Is that how your sister was hurt?” Barry asked and Pietro winced, countered the question and asked back, “I can leave after this?”

“After you heal,” Caitlyn told him, noticing him noticing the similar bracelets on her wrist so she asked him, “How did you meet Jesse?”

“I was running, when Hydra had me,” He told her. “The first time, there was a portal that opened up and I saw her. Then she was sometimes there when I ran fast enough then she came to my planet. It was – it was nice because everybody is so _slow_. I wanted to talk to her.”

“She told me that you can time travel,” He continued, breathing out the words like they were too hot to sit on his tongue any longer. “I think – I think once that I did, in the facility. I lost a week of my life and took a beating for it, I think – Wanda is _hurt._ ”

Wanda was hurt.

Wanda was hurt because he got stupid. He got cocky, and overconfident, and careless, and stupid. Because of him, Wanda was hurt.

She was bleeding, from a gash on her stomach and from her mouth. Blood so red and dark, and Pietro was not sure if he was breathing at all between his shouted demands that somebody help her. _Please, god, help!_

Wanda didn’t have his healing ability. Wanda wasn’t supposed to get hurt ever, he was supposed to protect her but he had failed.

The mission had been far from the end of the world to the point that it was _boring_ , a simple retrieval mission that Wanda wasn’t even a part of. He hadn’t taken it seriously, he had been bored and careless, and everything went sideway in a way he should really be used to by now.

The intel was wrong.

The Hydra fraction that he was supposed to take out before Cap stormed the gates had been prepared for him with Tasers and needles the length of his pinkie with serum that didn’t slow him but gave him terrible vertigo.

He’d got caught and then Barton got caught, and the rest of the team had been called in. It was supposed to be okay, Barton got him to the roof for extraction while ground forces – Hulk, Wanda, Cap, agents with names he forgot – took out the rest of the fraction.

They ran into trouble that came with bullets and Pietro had tried, _he tried_ , to keep out of the way, to stay on his feet as he distracted and Barton fired but he’d been careless. He let it go to his head, taunted them, dancing around the bullets despite his wobbly vision. He wasn’t paying attention and found himself back into a corner, and then over the ledge of the five-story building.

There was a bang and cold numbness that he knew too well, and he’d tripped over his own feet backwards over the ledge.

The building was rough and Pietro tried to find a grip on it, he tried to generate enough speed to run up the side of the building but he couldn’t get his feet coordinated with his mind. He was falling.

He’d distracted her.

He got her hurt.

Wanda got hurt, was bleeding, teeth as red and as bloody as her eyes had been moments before when she landed him softly on the ground. Her grip in his hand was going slack, her words had started to slur together, and she apologized repeatedly, “Sorry, Pietro, sorry. I didn’t see-“

It was his fault and she couldn’t see it. It was his fault.

She was rushed off, medical taking too long, too damn long so he ran her to the Avengers’ medical center. They told him that he couldn’t follow. They told him to wait.

He was a speedster, time moved differently for him. Time moved to a non-existing crawl and then stopped completely. He felt like he had been trapped in the microseconds waiting for news, for Wanda. Wanda’s blood was on his hands, still under his fingernails no matter how many times he wiped them on his suit.  

Time ticked, slowly. Slowly. Slowly. Slow. He was going crazy, he was rebuilding himself up and falling to pieces over and over. It’d been Clint that suggested that he should go on a run, just back to the tower for a shower and a change of clothes. It’d only take a moment. Just a moment and he would be back.

Barton would call if he heard anything about Wanda’s condition.

So, he ran.

He remembered the look on her face when she was struck, the way the red light in her eyes flickered and faded, how it died from her eyes and her veins, the way she fell. He remembered her shriek, how it echoed and broke, and the sound of the Hydra agents arm snapping in three places. He remembered the portal was to all of time, not just a week into the future.

He remember it appearing before him and then he was here, on this different Earth, without Wanda and with air that sat so heavy in his chest.

He just wanted to fix his mistake.

He just wanted-

“You want to change your past?”

“You can do that, yes?” He breathed, sounding too eager and too desperate all at once. “You can – Jesse said that _The_ Flash did.”

“It almost destroyed the world.”

“I don’t care.”

Barry suddenly looked very old and very tired, “The ramification of changing the time stream is, trust me, it’s-“

“Not worse when the alternative is my sister dying.”

“It can be,” Barry said, eyes darting to Cisco. No sooner than those words settled into the air, Pietro was upon him.

“Don’t,” Pietro hissed, the bracelets shorting and sparks flew from them as his power maxed them out. Pietro had to pull away to remove them before they burnt him any farther. “Don’t tell me that there is _anything_ worse than – than Wanda being hurt.”

“If we could change history with no effect than I would, trust me,” He said, putting distance between them. Pietro missed the look that Barry sent Cisco and the nod he sent back. “I would but it’s too dangerous. It causes a chain of events that-“

Pietro’s anger was building to a point, a very volatile point. It was almost visible to see it build inside of him.

Wanda always told him that he was impulsive and short-tempered and his speed only made him more so, he remembered her words when he charged at Barry and ran full speed into the wall of the cell he had just exited. He turned around with just enough time to see a portal into the cortex closing behind him, “What?”

“I can open portals,” was Cisco’s explanation after Pietro had thoroughly destroyed the metal bedframe, tore the blanket to shreds, and pulled the stuffing from the frustratingly-hard pillow, after he used the pieces of the bed to try to break the plexiglass and tired himself out in the process. “I didn’t mention that one.”

He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the carnage, hands curled into fists and breathing at an even pace. It did nothing to actually calm him but Banner did it a lot when he started going green.

Pietro opened one eye and looked to Cisco so he added, gesturing to the scratches in the glass, “I told you that this chamber can withstand King Shark.”  

“Let me out of here,” He stated in a plain voice. “It is unethical to hold people against their will, yes? Or is this Earth different?”

“We can’t let you go around messing with things you don’t understand,” Cisco said instead. “I get it, about your sister, but messing around with the time stream is unpredictable and dangerous.”

He sneered, angry, “You know nothing about my sister or I would not be in this cell.”

“Barry went back in time, saved his mother from dying,” Cisco replied plainly. “It created something called Flashpoint and well, when everything got changed back, my brother was dead. Caitlyn, those bracelets aren’t for funsies, they’re to keep a power that she can’t control controlled. And it created a monster, somebody called ‘Savitar.’ We’re trying to protect you from bringing that to yourself, your sister, and your Earth. We’re not the bad guys.”

Pietro’s teeth gritted together and he looked away, wanting to be angry, _was_ angry. He just wanted Wanda healthy and safe, he wanted Wanda. He just wanted help.

 This was what happened when you asked for help, he thought bitterly, friendly faces and prison cells.

“Leave me alone,” He sighed. “Just – go away.”

Pietro was left alone for an hour before a meal was pushed through the slot and Cisco tried again to offer him some alternative to time travel. He ignored both the food and the man.

Once he located the camera in the cell, a tiny little thing that rivaled anything Stark had, and he hit it until it broke into pieces, he started to work. He’d found the panel in the wall, hidden behind the bed, that barely looked any different from the rest of the wall in all sense expect that it held all the controls behind it.

Pietro wasn’t an engineer, had never taken Stark up on learning a bit of it, but he did like to read and had the ability to read as fast as he ran. He retained a lot of stuff, a bit of that stuff was on electrical engineering. At least, enough to not get himself electrocuted as he poked around in the mass of wiring, he hoped.

“I got –“ He trailed off as he heard footsteps before he saw anybody and shoved the remains of the bedframe against the wall to hide what he’d done. He hid his surprise at the unfamiliar face by eying the yellow uniform, he let his distaste for it show on his face.

“When Jesse said that she met another speedster,” He said with a sigh, “I never imagined that-“

“I’d be this good looking?”

“This much of a pain in the ass,” He replied and Pietro barked out a surprised laugh. “Wally, Wally West. I was told that you were looking for me.”

“I was looking for Jesse,” He replied sharply. “You are not her, I do not care to see you.”

“Don’t be like that, man,” He said with a laugh. “Do you know how much I’ve listened to Jesse go on and on and on about this cool speedster on an Earth with a metal tin-man and brainwashed World War II soldiers, it’s a lot. She talked a lot about you?”

“Good things, eh?”

“She said that she was faster than you,” He smirked. “And I beat her the last time we raced so, I’m faster than you.”

“Who is to say,” Pietro trailed off, waving his hand in the air with his accent thicker than he liked to have it around Americans as if he was looking for the words. It distracted people, made them think he wasn’t as smart as he was. It was easy to use against them when they thought that.  “Ah, who is to say that I did not, how do you say, let her win?”

Wally snorted, “I doubt it.”

“It is honorable, yes?” He said down on the edge of the bedframe and reached behind it for the mess of wiring he had dragged out. “And charming.”

“And sexist, dude, you’ve met Jesse. You think she’d find that charming?”

He shrugged, fingering his way through the wires he could see out of the corner of his eye to the blue one. He was pretty sure that was the one that would release the pressure lock, “You are Jesse’s boyfriend?”

“I am,” He said proudly.

“She is a wonderful person,” He stated. “And I hope, that she forgiving.”

“Forgiving? For what-“

Pietro pulled the wire and the lights shuttered, he used the distraction to slide under the rising glass. Wally got what was happening and rush towards him but Pietro had prepared for that in his revision, cracking his elbow into the speedster’s face at full force.

He made it to the door before he felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. Pietro pushed and Wally pulled, and they both crashed hard into the wall. Pietro’s head smacking against it left him dazed enough for Wally to get the upper hand.

Wally pulled up on the shoulder of his previously injured arm, angling it to a spot that made Pietro cry out in pain before the hands were gone, “Yeah, shit, Barry said you were hurt. Did I-“

He punched him in the stomach for a ‘just because’ reason before getting to his feet. He stalked off down the hall, Wally followed at a distance, “Where are you going?”

He ignored him for a moment, opening a door to what was appeared to be a storage closet and then slamming it shut, moving on to the next. And then the next, and then the next, until he found what he was looking for.

Jesse had mentioned once, The Pipeline, said it was the best place to open a portal on Earth 1. Wally seemed to get his thinking too because Pietro was shoved against the wall before he could take off, “Dude, wait.”

“No!” He shoved back, getting enough space between them to run so he did. And Wally chased, and then Barry chased, but did matter because Pietro was desperate and desperation breed speed. He could see the portal and then…

_‘Shot through the heart and you’re to blame, you give love a bad name.’_

He slowed to a stop.

“What the – is that – is that your ringtone?” Cisco asked, running the distance between the entrance and the frozen speedsters, Caitlyn a step behind him. “Dude, you have Jovi on your Earth?”

“I didn’t set it,” He muttered, searching for the object in his pockets and then just staring at it while it rang. _Old Man Barton_ glowing on the screen.

“What? How are you-“

“Exactly,” He stated, there was no way he should be getting a call. Barton isn’t on this Earth, it felt like a trap, a trick, but Barton also said that he’d call with an update on Wanda. Pietro answered the phone, “Yes.”

Barry snatched the thing from his hand, putting it on speaker as Clint’s voice came through concerned and annoyed, “Where the hell are you?”

“Wanda,” Pietro demanded, his heart seized in his chest. “Is she-“

“You’re not even on the planet, are you?” He accused. “I have to call Jane Foster. _Jane Foster_ , to use her transgalatic communication do-dah. I think I called Asgard first.”

“I do not care, tell me about Wanda.”

“Tell me where you are?”

“A parallel dimension,” He waved his hand around annoyed even Barton couldn’t see it. “ _Tell_ me about Wanda.”

“Dude, new rule, no interdimensional travel.”

“Wanda.”

“She’s fine,” He told, relief flooding Pietro’s features. “I mean, she’s sore as hell and tired but the running theory is that she’s one lucky son of a gun. The bullet missed everything vital.”

“Luck has nothing to do with Wanda.”

Barton laughed on his end of the line, “I know, kid. She wants to see you so get ass here.”

He hung up and Barry handed Pietro back his phone. He raised an eyebrow at him questioningly and expectant, and Pietro sneered, “I will not apologize.”

Pietro did not apologize, he wouldn’t because Pietro was kind of dick. He did, however, help clean up some of the mess he made in the cortex because his mother raised him to the age of ten to always be polite to powerful women and Caitlyn was just that, “I use run into walls.”

She looked up from overturning a chair, “What?”

“When – when Hydra had me, they kept me in a cell,” He told her, it was not guilt-tripping but the look on her face was regretful and hurt. “I use to – my powers were new and I couldn’t control them, the energy would build up and I’d run into the walls. They clocked it once, eight hundred miles per hour face first into a wall.”

“That is horrible.”

“It was better when I allowed out on the tracks,” He said. “I could burn off the excess energy.”

“…Why is it that you are telling me this?”

“Those bracelets are just holding back your powers?” He asked and she hid her hands. “The power is still there, building up in you. It will come out eventually, yeah? It is better if you learn to control it.”

“I can’t.”

“I do not believe that, Caitlyn Snow,” He told her. “You have a kind heart, I can see it, no evils those powers will bring will ever kill that.”

She nodded once, not fully convinced but she appreciated it, “You need to eat before you go. It is taxing on speedsters, I will send for take out.”

Caitlyn walked away and Wally slid up next to him. He looked like he did not have ill will towards Pietro for the bruising on his nose, “Hey man. Barry tells me that all of this was for your sister. You must really care about her.”

“She is all I have had since I was ten, I love her more than anything or any Earth.”

He nodded once, “I’m glad that she’s going to be okay.”

“As am I,” He replied, accepting the granola bar Caitlyn shoved into his hand and the takeout menu. “She is strong.”

“I know what that’s like, I have a sister, too,” He told him. “Iris. She is – she’s a reporter, just so brave. I – you know that you cannot really run off, changing time if she gets hurts.”

Pietro’s eyes narrowed into a glare, “You have a sister and you would not do absolutely everything to save her?”

“This – they told you about Savitar?” He asked and Pietro nodded. “Barry changed the past and it created Savitar. He ran into the future and witnessed Iris being killed by him.”

Pietro’s eyes grew wide, “You cannot allow that to happen!”

“I wouldn’t, _we_ won’t,” Wally stressed. “But changing the past made everything worse. Your sister is a superhero, like you? Do you think that she would want the world to suffer because of her?”

“I do not care about the world,” He waved off. “I care about Wanda, and Wanda-“

“Is alive,” He finished. “Cherish that.”

“I will,” He replied. “Save your sister.”

Wally smiled, “Yeah, I will.”

Pietro stood and stretched, “And tell Jesse that I said she could do better.”

He zipped off to talk to Caitlyn and Wally laughed, “Man, why you gotta be like that?”


End file.
